by Nikki Wild
I ducked the pants as best I could, using my body to shield the champagne from harm. A man has to have his priorities, after all. At least part of what Tessa said was true: we were starting to get a little strapped for cash, but to say we were out? That was ridiculous. As much as I liked to party, I was hardly a big spender.
“Your numbers are dropping, Jules,” Tessa reminded me, approaching the cart and setting the drink carrier on top of it. “And if you plan to keep having your fun with whatever sweetheart comes your way, then you’d better be willing to actually perform at your bloody shows instead of running off before your set!”
“I thought I’d forgotten something,” I murmured as Tessa thrust one of the Starbucks cups at me. I took it, sniffed, and then finished off what was left in the champagne bottle instead. She glared murder at me. “Come on, now. There’ll be other gigs…”
She snatched the bottle from me. “Not if you keep this up, there won’t!” Slamming it down on the cart, she ripped the other drink from the carrier and put it to her lips, guzzling it like caffeine was her lifeblood. “I have tried so hard to keep your head above water—do you know how hard it is to book a big show for a rock star whose music has only a small cult following here in the States? Do you?!”
“Then let’s stick closer to home, love!” I said, smiling as the booze finally started kicking in. My first headache was already on its way out, and hopefully Tessa would be next. “Who needs America?”
“You do,” she snapped. “If you want to become a real star, you need to make it big over here. The music industry is six times bigger here than it is back home. You either break out in America, or you’re just going to wind up some flash in the pan that burned out before he even got started. I can see it already: you, drunk in some pub in Essex telling everyone about how famous you used to be. How great you almost were.”
I heaved a sigh, rolling my eyes as I pushed myself up from the edge of the bed. For a brief moment I tottered there, wondering if I’d actually lose my balance as the champagne hit me full-on.
Tessa wasn’t wrong about me—or my situation—not entirely. Sure, I’d made it big in the UK. Yes, I had some truly rabid fans here in the states… But it wasn’t enough. If you didn’t make it big in America, you were destined for obscurity. I worked too hard to claw my way up from nothing to let it all go to waste.
Yet some part of me just felt… tired.
Tired of having to climb up on stage and start from scratch. I didn’t like being Tessa’s dancing monkey. If she wasn’t so damn good at her job, I would have fired her a long time ago. She was the only one who’d managed to get me booked for anything more than a open mic night here in the States, and that meant she deserved a little latitude… Besides… I was under contract.
“Fine,” I said as I re-established my balance, holding the sheets over my waist to afford myself some privacy as I fought to get dressed. “I fucked up. There, I said it. Let’s just move on, okay? Let’s just go home.”
“Maybe there I can get you a show you’ll actually show up for,” she said, “and do some damage control on this circus you’ve brought down on our heads.”
I rolled my eyes skyward and pulled on my pants. I wasn’t a fan of going commando, but I’d be damned if I was going to walk bare-assed across the room in front of my battle axe of a manager. “Christ, Tessa, you’re so dramatic. It can’t be all that bad.”
“It’s not front page news,” she admitted, “but it made the paper. Your fans—the few you have over here—aren’t pleased with you one bit.”
I grinned at her. “Bet at least one of them is.”
Tessa shook her head, wiping the lipstick stain from her coffee cup. “You’re a pig, Julian,” she said, a note of exhaustion creeping into her tone. “That kind of thing might work with girls who don’t know any better, but it doesn’t work with me.” Her sharp gaze caught my own. She had this uncanny way of making a man feel two inches tall. “I know you better than you think, and the fact of the matter is that lately, I don’t like what I see. I don’t know what’s going on with you, and at this stage, I’m not sure I care to. You need to grow up, Jules. Bottom line.” After another sip from her cup, she sighed and looked away from me. “Just get dressed and we’ll head to the airport.”
I didn’t like hearing how disappointed she was. It made me think of my nan. She was a beast of a German woman with hard eyes, but I knew she had a soft heart underneath all that scowling. Sometimes it seemed like yelling was her natural state of being, so it was never her anger that stopped me from being a twat. It was when she’d get quiet and shake her head and say she’d expected better from me. That always took the wind right out of my sails.
I was a performer, through and through. The notion of not living up to the hype, of falling short of other people’s expectations… that was enough to cripple me. It made me wonder if maybe that’s why my fling from last night had run out on me.
Tessa was right. I needed to do something to get back on my feet. I just wished she wasn’t such a stone cold bitch about it.
It took me just another minute to get the rest of my clothes on, though for the life of me I could never properly manage shoelaces whenever I was drunk. Before long the two of us were on our way down to the lobby. All I wanted was another drink, but for the moment, I’d have to settle for shitty coffee.
“So what happened to this one?” Tessa said as we made our way down the hall to the lifts. She chuckled as she hit the call button. “Did you scare her off? Usually I have to pry them off the chandelier after you’ve had your fun with them.”
The car arrived almost immediately, doors parting with an insufferable chime. We stepped on board and she hit the button for the lobby. I didn’t answer her until the doors were closed again.
“If you can believe it, I don’t know,” I said haltingly, wondering if I was opening myself up to even more humiliation by confiding in someone with all the maternal instincts of an angry crocodile. “She was gone before I woke up.”
Tessa glanced at me out of her periphery. For a moment, an expression flitted across her face that was close to empathy. The piercing nature of her gaze grew just a bit softer. “Probably for the best, really,” she quietly said. “Besides, you’ve got one of those ‘one and done’ rules from what I understand.”
“What’s so wrong with that?” I asked as we reached our floor. We stepped out in tandem. As much as Tessa grated on my nerves, I had to admit that in our time together, we had developed a certain synchronicity—an involuntary rhythm.
“Well,” she said as we hurried through the doors and approached the town car waiting at the curb to take us to the airport, “I’m just thinking that maybe it’d be good for your image to settle things down a bit. Show the world that you’re not just some lush looking to deflower every piece of ass you come across.”
I snorted at the very thought. “That’s ridiculous. Who wants to see the rock star with a stable love life? It’s sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, not flowers and cards and acoustic guitar.”
Tessa sighed and shook her head as we got into the car. She never cared for how I behaved, even though people seemed to like seeing me on the cover of every tabloid. Tessa only looked the other way when my scandal-of-the-day was actually boosted my “ratings.” It was all about the numbers to her, never about the music or the lifestyle. That was the whole reason I even got started on this path. I wanted the fame and the recognition and the fucking fun. The money was just a bonus.
For Tessa, the money was absolutely everything. That was why we would never truly get along.
“You’ve got to think about your image, Julian,” she said—just like she’d said a thousand times before. “Maybe think about getting a girlfriend, someone who’s famous or something. Hell, you don’t even have to like her. Just let the paparazzi snap a few photos and then break it off. It’s things like that that generate interest in you, not having a tumble with some anonymous tramp.”
“Do you realize
you’re the reason this world is awful?” I asked, lifting my brows. “That little scheme of yours is precisely why people hate hearing about celebrities. It’s all fake. It’s trash. At least when I sleep around, I’m bloody honest about who I am. I’m not manufacturing drama by pretending to be something I’m not.” I looked out the window and muttered, “Bloody hell. Isn’t there anyone who gives a shit about authenticity anymore?”
From the corner of my eye, I watched Tessa give a dismissive wave of her hand. “Have it your way, Julian. But when you start to realize that no one’s interested in a rock star with no scandal to their name, you’ll start to see things my way.”
“I thought the problem was that I was already causing too much scandal?” I said, watching the buildings go by. The neon glow of the previous night had drained out of all the signs. It was rather depressing to see, really—that the glitz and the glamour of this town was just as fake as Tessa was suggesting I should be.
“No, the problem is you’re not embroiled in the right kind of scandal,” she replied, shaking the contents of her coffee cup to stir them. “After a while, a different girl every night is boring and predictable. People want drama—they don’t want to hear the same tired story about you chasing skirts forever. You’ve got to give them something more substantial.” She took a long drink, then added, “You’ve got to give them a broken heart.”
I sniffed at that, shaking my head. Of course that was what they wanted. They always had. Everyone who got up on stage was just a broken heart bleeding for their approval. But no, the fans needed to make it complicated. Somewhere along the line, this business had become less about the music and more about the misery. I wasn’t sure when it happened, exactly. But sometimes it felt like things had changed right when I’d come along.
I closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the glass. The champagne buzz was wearing off, and everything was starting to hurt again. The cool pressure provided a very small comfort.
“I guess you’re right,” I muttered. “We are in the business of giving the people what they want.”
Tessa seemed both surprised and satisfied by this. “I know you’ve got ideals, Jules. But trust me—things will turn around if you take my advice. You’ll be seeing things my way.”
Doubtful, that, I thought to myself, but I refrained from saying it out loud. I knew when to pick my battles.
And if I was being honest… I had the sneaking suspicion that Tessa was right. I would never amount to anything unless I ruined someone’s life for people’s fucking entertainment. Even if that life was my own…
Maybe you were smarter than I gave you credit for, I inwardly said to the girl who’d left my side before I had the chance to learn her name. You got out of my way before I had the chance to hurt you… Good for you, love. Good for you.
I only wished that, like her, I had the freedom to steal out of my life and never look back.
3
Elizabeth
Six weeks later…
Jesus Christ, what the hell did I eat? I asked myself as I sat curled around my toilet wracked with unrelenting nausea. I couldn’t hold anything down! I’d never felt so sick in my entire life, not even when I’d gotten that stomach virus a few years back.
I absolutely hated calling out of work. It wasn’t something that happened often, if ever, but it still made me feel like such an unreliable asshole that I had, at first, tried to tough it out and get dressed. I had prided myself on my attendance and dedication to being the hardest working person there—even if the pay was just barely enough to keep my head above water. With my student loans constantly looming over my head, I knew that I had to put in every single second of my free time into work, otherwise I might just start to realize how awful my life was.
Though I’d managed to mostly get ready to go, I was lucky I’d never made it to the car. If I had, I would have ended up blowing chunks all over my dashboard, all over my nice clothes, and probably getting into a wreck on top of everything else. The last thing I needed was another bill, or for my insurance rates to go up. Ugh, how depressing—I couldn’t even think of my own health or safety without putting money first.
I wanted to cry, and not just from the paranoia at what missing a day of work would mean for my paycheck. Every moment I spent on the bathroom floor was another moment I was beset by wave after wave of intolerable illness. In the moments I wasn’t physically sick, I was almost wishing that I was so that at least I could get it over with.
“Call me back, dammit,” I groaned, looking down at my cell phone’s blank screen. When all of this had started a few days ago, I’d rushed straight into my doctor’s office to get myself checked out. They’d poked and prodded and given me a prescription for some anti-nausea medication that I couldn’t even keep down long enough to let it take effect. I felt like a hot mess, and all I could hope for was that they’d get back to me so that I at least had some idea of just how screwed I was.
I was the kind of person who was convinced that whatever I had, it would be the thing that killed me. I was constantly checking my symptoms online, and with the way most “medical” sites worked, the diagnosis from my computer doctor was almost always something serious like the plague or cancer. This time, however, I thought that maybe I was dying. It certainly felt that way.
Is this some kind of karmic punishment? I wondered.
Oh, how I wished I could blame somebody. I desperately wanted to shift my anger onto something tangible, something more palpable than the nebulous idea of fate or chance.
The grinding buzz of my cell phone nearly made me jump out of my skin, and I scrambled to grab it, hoping it was my doctor. In my rush I didn’t even bother to look at the name or the number. I just answered.
“Doctor Harper?” I rasped.
“Nah, hun. It’s just me,” Jen replied. I loved her, dearly, but right then I wanted nothing more than to throw my phone into the toilet and curse her for getting my hopes up.
I scrubbed my hand over my face, trying to sound even worse so as to get her off the phone. “Oh, hey. I’m waiting for a call from my doctor, actually. Can we talk later?”
“I don’t think it can, babe,” she said, and now I noticed the strange note in her voice. It was like she was just waiting to let something out—to tell me a huge secret like she usually did over lunch at work. Jen was probably the biggest gossip I’d ever met. But this didn’t sound entirely like that. This sounded a little more serious.
“Are you okay?” I asked, frowning as I sat up a little straighter. The nausea was starting to pass, giving way to anxiety and concern. I’d take a tight chest over a rolling stomach any day.
“I’m fine,” she answered, and by the way the words were slightly muffled, I could tell she was chewing her lip. “But you’re going to want to get to a TV and turn on channel seven.”
I let out a sigh and slowly hefted myself up from the bathroom floor. Maybe that slimy, sick sensation had abated, but the effects of it had left my knees weak. I took a moment to steady myself on the counter before making my way out to the living room, using the walls for support. All I wanted was some toast, but in my current state, I was afraid it would do more harm than good.
I let myself half-sit, half-fall onto my couch, grabbing at the remote with an unhappy grunt before I turned on the TV to channel seven—the local garbage heap we called a news network.
“All right, Jen, I’m watching it,” I muttered. “Why did you want me to see a story about pandas at the zoo again?”
“Fuck the pandas,” she said. “Just wait a few minutes and they’ll put it on again.”
I heaved another sigh and stared blankly at the screen, watching as the tiny baby bears rolled around in their enclosure. If nothing else, they served as a decent distraction. They were so cute they almost brought tears to my eyes—which was saying something, since I didn’t even cry during Steel Magnolias.
I chalked it up to stress as another story flashed across the screen, this one about a drunk drivi
ng accident that had occurred late the night before. “Is it someone we know?” I asked Jen. She sighed.
“No, that’s not it either. Piece of shit station. Just… be patient. It’ll be worth the wait, I swear.”
“I’m really not in the mood, Jen, whatever it is,” I told her, glancing at my phone to make sure the doctor wasn’t calling on the other line. He wasn’t. Damn him. “I feel like death warmed up.”
“This won’t make you feel any better,” she warned me. “But you do need to see it.”
I was about to argue when one of the news anchors came on the screen, a clown-like grin on her face. I groaned. This was the one I not-so-affectionately referred to as Debby Smiles, the woman who never, ever let that overly cheerful expression drop from her face. It was horrifying, really, the way she talked around it, even when discussing something as serious as a Make-a-Wish sob story. Jen and I had had many a laugh as we theorized about what could possibly have caused this terrible affliction to befall her—my favorite theory was “Botox Gone Wrong,” but Jen’s involved her being a reincarnation of Pennywise.
The red lipstick did her no favors in that arena.
“And in local news,” Debby Smiles began, overly white teeth glistening under the studio lights, “Sorry ladies, but it looks like the most eligible bachelor on the planet is off the market! Julian Bastille is a married man.”
Shame burned my cheeks at the same time that rage scalded my chest. It was bad enough that I’d had a little fling with him. Now he’s married a few weeks later?
That bastard used me to cheat on someone?
My fists clenched, nails digging into the heels of my palms. I couldn’t believe this. Sure, I’d never imagined he was some sort of upstanding gentleman, but making me complicit in something like this…
“That piece of shit,” I muttered, completely forgetting that Jen was on the other end of the line.
“What’re you talking about?” she asked. I pinched the bridge of my nose.